Past and Present
For the full moon on the night of September 7th 2025, I had a game plan. I knew exactly where the fish would be from a pattern they were displaying last year. And boy, I wasn’t disappointed!
Last year about this time, I noticed an amazing pattern the walleye were displaying. They were chasing cisco that had abandoned the thermocline up into nearly less than a foot of water! Looking into the shallows with a headlamp while reeling in a fish caught a little deeper revealed a hundred sizeable walleye darting every which way, aggressively pursuing vulnerable cisco. I managed to catch several nice ones, with the most notable being a 25” that followed the lure ad struck just off the back of the boat, eyes illuminated by my boat lights. It was far from my largest walleye, but definitely one of the most unique strikes that I have ever seen!
Anyways, flash forward to September of 2025. I observed this exact pattern happening again in the same exact place, at the same exact time. Funny how that works, eh? I started fishing deeper to allow the walleye to move into their hunting grounds undisturbed. I vertical jigged on this incredible piece of structure where the narrows of two lakes have a hump that shoots up to 25 feet, with deep holes on either side, and the hump directly leads to the shallow structure they were moving to. Within 5 minutes of vertical jigging a Berkley Finisher off bottom, a ravenous 25.75” walleye crushed it and was hooked perfectly. A quick measurement and photo later, I threw it back to hit the fabled 30” mark someday. Someday…will come, sorry CCR.
After having some fun hooking decent fish deep and losing a real heartbreaker of a walleye halfway up to the boat, I decided to start trolling. And I just hammered the fat cisco eating walleye that normally suspend over the thermocline. Tonight, their favorite meal was in my comfort zone. I always say, find the food, find the fish. On cisco based lakes, the biggest fish are almost exclusively eating cisco. It’s a sure fire way for them to reach legitimate trophy, and dare I say record status. Someday…
